“Udeozo’s Cyclone and Compassion treat almost every subject under the
sun…”

DAILY
SUN.

“ Universality is one word whichsummarizes Obu Udeozo’s themes in Cyclone.The poet is versatile in handling varieties
of themes with amazing ease and mastery.”

The
GUARDIAN.

“…his is indeed a most universal range covering traditional African lore,
myths of Africa and other lands, sacred scriptures both Judeo – Christian and
oriental, classical literature and history, music, painting and contemporary
Africa and world affairs.His poetic
range is bewildering….”

Prof. Francis E. Ngwaba Fulbright Scholar.

“….from galaxies to atoms, from deserts to oceans, from sharks to
worms, from cities to forests: he ranges through the landscape of human
experience, bringing together agony, and bliss, betrayal and loyalty….This volume confirms Udeozo unequivocally as
the master of metaphor.”

Rt.
Rev. Emmanuel S.

Egbunu, Bishop of the Anglican
Diocese, of Lokoja, Nigeria.

“Cyclone is quite simply out of this world.The cover features the 1999 picture “Shark!”

by Jeffrey L. Rotman.The all –
black page 300 has a round “worm hole” leading to the ozone or the galaxy…The equally black page 303 has the poem
“Negative Victor Ludorum” laid upside down etc. The forming and layout of some
of the poems are otherworldly.Beyond
the designs Udeozo remains a poet of solid words, writing a kind of poetry that
sets fire on ice.”

NEWAGE.

“Cyclone is a creatively fierce book which volume and quality,
uniqueness of style, meet at the same sublime summit…Udeozo’s poems are either singing, leaping or
they are just soaring… a seraphic orchestra.

LEADERSHIP
Sunday.

“Obu Udeozo’s poetry resonates with a delightful music and an amazing
simplicity of idiom.Yet he deals with
very complex emotions and vivifies every acute metaphor with a learned grasp of
phenomenal nature…”

Sunday VANGUARD

“Architecture patterns are strikingly used to foster a form – sense
synthesis…The result approximates the
professed goal of the Heideggerian search for a quintessential language.”

“Udeozo’s poetry comes to us hot from the foundry of his restless
imagination.He is a natural poet ready
to take on any subject that touches his people.We shall hear of him more and more in the years ahead”.

Chinua Achebe

“A man with a message, a very heavy and urgent message.”

OKIKE:An African Journal of New
Writing

“He strides along the pages trying to recapture the picturesque.Like the master of metaphor that he is, he
translates the brush strokes of his fertile imagination into the canvas of
poetic surrealism… He is on of such spirits stirred by the Divine.”

An Igbo man from Nigeria is being idolized in America, as a King of the Computer
age. That foreign Universities, research institutions and Western nations
compete for his lecture tours, plus media coverage like a Head of State!

What does this mean to the Kenyan, the Yoruba, the
Ghanian, the Berom, and the Zulu among us. What does achieving the world's
fastest computation at 3.1 billion calculations per second: implying
break-through in medical science, automobile engineering and many other fields
of knowledge; mean to 20th century society's blackman, and
developing nations?

Several levels of significance exist in human
endeavors. An event qualifies for historical reckoning if it attains the
super-ordinate status and proves of enduring value.

Individuals and nations that make impact to
civilization become wheels upon which the world's progress rolls for ages.

One cannot imagine a world without fire and
agriculture, without reading and writing, without the Egyptians and Greeks,
without Galileo and Einstein, a world without television and electronics, and
now a world without Massive Parallelism
and Emeagwali.

It has not always been this way.

Like a faded photograph, traumas in the recent
past, has blurred our communal minds. After our colonial experience, developing
nations lapsed into psychic inertia: passively watching major developments in
the world, without respectable contributions on our part.

Against this background, Emaegwali's significance
is multifold. His feat is unprecedented. The achievement occurred in a rarefied
field of science. And it represents a climax of on-going
"myth-breaking" events in our own side of the story.

However, one must be wary of hyperboles. Emeagwali
did not manufacture the computer he used, nor can Nigeria invent any from scratch to
showroom.

Emeagwali's achievement is a landmark in an
increasing wave of black triumphs in our time. There is an alarming penetration
of Blacks into territories, which the world had felt were beyond our peculiar
nature.

After the legendary Mohammed Ali's assertion that
there will never be a White World Heavy Weight Boxing Champion, unless there
are no good Blacks, we now have an avalanche of Superstars in several
specialties, Michael Jackson, Mike Tyson, Michael Jordan, Mike Marsh, as if
excellence were a monopoly of MIKES!!

Yet, the demeaning myth endured.

It seemed as if the genius of developing nations
were limited to events needing stamina and not cerebration.

It appeared with almost frightening verisimilitude
that we could not perform at those sublime activities which required exercising
the human mind at its highest intensity.

Our earlier men of genius, persons like Chike Obi,
Awojobi, Ali Mazurui, the Okigbos, and Abdul Salam appeared like pitiable
exceptions in an ocean of ineptitude.

General Colin Powel recently observed that Africans
are losing even those elementary comforts we inherited from colonialism.

To worsen matters, African Leadership, by Africans
for Africans have squandered more of their nation's wealth, than the colonial
masters ever harvested in the entire continent.

Somehow, it was becoming self evident, that we were
degenerate and disoriented.

And this reinforced the SUPERIORITY COMPLEX of our
detractors.

Are we doomed to subjugation and depravity.

Let it be noted that this is not a racist treatise.
Spreading the gospel of inter-racial acrimony can only compound the problem. I
believe that racism, ethnicism and their sisters, are counter-productive in
life. Private happiness and collective peace are ruined by excessive
self-interest. Therefore, sign-posts like creed, nation, color and tribe merely
amplify human problems. The noble man is he whose mind can embrace the world in
equal fellowship. This is the mark of cultivation and genius.

Nevertheless, the issues herein addressed are
primeval.

We are talking about a SOLID feeling that gripped
the black mind in recent history. The tenuous feelings of underprivilege,
emasculation and bewilderment; he either accepted or revolted against.

And this is a fact of life not fiction - however
bitterly it is denied.

Regardless of the strings of successes persons from
developing nations had made in various fields of knowledge, the suspicion
lingered, that there were certain areas of scholarship our "Humanity"
could not handle. Ever heard of a blackman being the World Champion in chess,
or a Nobel Prize Winner in Molecular Medicine, Quantum Mechanics or Fractal
Geometry. Winning in such areas seemed as unlikely as a blackman being the
President of Japan.

But now, all this has changed.

The emergence of Emeagwali and his stunning accomplishments
in super computers, with degrees in five different discipline, like Applied
Mathematics, Ocean and Marine Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering,
another in Mathematics, and of course a Doctorate degree in Scientific
Computing - we can say that his celebration in America and Western Nations, is
a sweet vindication of God's impartiality concerning Genius.

Before qualifying this jubilation as unnecessary
and baseless, consider Chinua Achebe's response as a clue to the mentality of
foreigners in this concern. Said he, "Equality is the one thing which
Europeans are conspicuously incapable of extending to others, especially
Africans."

This discourse sets our present status and
achievement in its proper historical light. An Igbo proverb says that: "he who does not remember when and where it
started raining on him, will not appreciate when it stops".

Things have changed without a doubt. Not many
Europeans still hold the view credited to the German Scholar, Late Janheinz
Jahn who said:

"only the most highly cultivated person counts as a real
European. A real African on the other hand … lives in the bush … goes naked …
and tells fairy stories about the crocodile and the elephant. The more
primitive, the more really African".

We are compelled to take cognizance of Emeagwali's
contributions and to celebrate them, because contemptuous treatment of
developing nations, exist in Western Societies, at varying levels till date.

Of man's countless inventions, the COMPUTER is an
amazing icon of veneration because of it's dazzling possibilities. The machine
revels in a snobbish exclusiveness because even its operators wear an aura of
privilege.

It is upon this Western Civilization's Crowning
Jewel, that Philip Emeagwali, from Onitsha, Nigeria - is considered the "World's Fastest Man:" having
also made history by being the first Solo Winner of the Gordon Bell Prize,
which hitherto, was won only by seasoned research teams.

The argument is finished.

Emeagwali's brilliance is akin to an ablution; it
has upturned the perverted logic of bigots and supremacists, who classify
certain individuals or races, as second class beings or out-rightly sub-humand.

Emeagwali, and others like Prof. Nnaji who is
considered among the World's best three Robotics Engineers, Olarenwaju Adeyiga,
Howard's Obstetrician and Gynecologist, Dr. Ofodile, a Plastic Surgeon and
member of the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery are
Africans at the peak of excellence in their various disciplines at the summit
of science.

These accomplishments are a metaphor for freedom.
They are proofs of the universal quality of genius, as freely bestowed on
mankind by God to Emeka, Pollock, Kofi, Kim, Ibrahim and Aristobulus.

But ironically, it is at this climax that our
celebration must halt. We critically need a solemn self re-assessment.

What are our chances of sustaining these
break-throughs for contributing our respectable quota to human society.

The philosopher Whitehead says that
"Civilization develops only where considerable number of men work together
for common ends".

In Nigeria for instance, male youths
from Emeagwali's area no longer go to school by a pathetic extent.
Discriminatory policies entrenched in our nation translate school leavers
especially from Igboland into candidates of despair and helplessness.

In a situation where citizens of a nation are
denied equal rights to basic amenities of life, where mutual suspicion, rivalry
and hatred inspire State Policy; where embezzlement of public funds and
violence reign, how can we harness the consensus
for progress.

Whereas developed nations, comfortably ahead of us
are tirelessly seeking new inventions, like reported prospects of computers
being designed that will monitor and minimize energy waste in the home, fine
tune the car fuel system, flag us when something needs repair, they will also
warm the garage, lock the doors and perform an assortment of tasks.

Here in Africa, as a result of
insensitivity in high quarters and misplaced priorities, foreign musicians
routinely organize charity shows to save our population from flooding, guinea
worm infection and starvation.

The Continent's problems have become so severe,
that even our best minds are uttering what was once considered sacrilegious.
Prof. Ali Mazurui recently advocated "Benign Recolnization" of Africa by Africans more
prosperous nations, in order to rescue us from total collapse. o

But when African Scholars, Professors and graduates
alike, scramble for opportunities to teach pupils in Western Nations and
America, in order just to feed, when our graduates wash dishes, serve as night
guards and petrol attendants overseas, what other passport or visa to
Neo-Colonization do we require.

Africa's problems are not
congenital nor "in our stars". We can and have now triumphed in
academics. Our athletes and footballers are admired worldwide and paid salaries
that would make most of their home Governments to salivate.

What we pray for is an environment of peace and
justice, which does not negate progress among us.

Only this will enable us contribute our proven
equality to all fields of human endeavor.

The world does not owe us a free lunch.

Compared with the prospects of his native land
surviving into the 21st century, Emeagwali's feat however lofty and
commendable fizzles. It is like fielding George Opong Weah, because he was the
world's most valuable player, to face Brazil's National team, ALONE -
in a crucial match.

Black nations must begin addressing injustices in
our societies which transform us into ready made topics for ridicule, debate
and contempt on earth.

And we cannot do so, when our school children have
no uniforms, no classrooms, nor textbooks, and when lecturers are on strike and
our Universities are closed indefinitely - and nobody cares.

OBU UDEOZO - is a Professional Painter,
Poet and Clinical Psychologist.

Ancestral greetings, blessings, loving, and light
throughout all creations and above.

King
god Philip Emeagwali

Because of the honor you give to the Afrikan Carbon Family, because of the
progress that you seek, because of your resolution to lead the Afrikan people
back to their righteous mind-set not abandoning them there, because of the seen
and unseen power in you, you fall into the position of "A Living
Hero," and this is the moment.

King god Emeagwali helped give birth to the supercomputer, the technology that
spawned the Internet.

King god Philip Emeagwali is credited for inventing a formula that allows
supercomputers powered by thousands of processors to perform billions of
calculations per second -- a discovery that made international headlines and
inspired the reinvention of supercomputers.

The supercomputer comprises of thousands of networked computers and the
Internet also comprises of millions of networked computers. The supercomputer
spawned the Internet.

Emeagwali's 1970s hypothesis on 64,000 networked computers around the Earth led
to his programming of 64,000 processors inside a big box to perform 3.1 billion
calculations per second, a world record in 1989. For the latter achievement, he
won the 1989 Gordon Bell Prize, which is the “Nobel prize of supercomputing.”

Born in 1954 in a remote Nigerian village, Emeagwali was declared a child math
prodigy. His father nurtured his skill with daily arithmetic drills. In 1967,
the civil war in his country forced him to drop out of school at age twelve.
When he turned fourteen, he was conscripted into the Biafran army. After the
war ended, he completed his high school equivalency by self-study and came to
the United States
on a mathematics scholarship at age nineteen.

As true Afrikan Queen goddesses, it is our duty to eloquently equip our Afrikan
King gods/Queen goddesses with the most vital and essential tools and weapons
that will strengthen our Afrikan male/female Warriors on the Front-line.

The eloquent words from the Queen goddesses lips, are to:

encourage
equip
motivate

For Iron Sharpens Iron.

A nation will rise no higher than its woman, and the profound eloquent words
from the Queen goddesses lips to a Warrior (male/female) lighten his/her load,
which frees him/her up to do battle.

King god Philip
Emeagwali, as you enter any room, may your presence always have the appearance
of a gazelle, like a Stag on the mountain.

May the wisdom that comes forth from your lips,
from your heart, a love which consumes with fire for the Afrikan Carbon Family,
terrify
nations, and shake kingdoms with truth.
I plea with you Mighty Warrior Philip
Emeagwali. Let no people, place or thing, cause you to miscarry or abort your
mission.

Carry your mission to its full term. I plea with you My Beloved brother Philip
Emeagwali to do nothing to cause an interruption for your love for the Afrikan
Family.

I do not need to look for you among the flocks of other men.

To you My Beloved brother Philip
Emeagwali, continue to, excite the hearts, souls, and mind of the people (with
truth) like a mare excites the stallions of Pharaoh's chariots.

I plea with you Mighty Warrior Philip
Emeagwali, to continue to ride on in majestic to victory for the defense of
truth and justice. Your strength will win us great victories, and Afrika Will
BE BORN AGAIN.

Afrika isfor the Afrikans.

May these words continue to fill you with energy, power, and Spirit for the
struggles to come, and there are many.

For if we get tired of racing against men (oppressors), how can we race against
horses. If we cannot stand up in open country (america/Diaspora), how will we
manage in the jungle (Afrika). Many have joined in the attacks against us. Let
harmony (which confuse the enemy), with understanding be the shield that
protects you.

I know a King god when I see one, and I know how and when to BOW.

King
god Philip Emeagwali

I AM my brothers and sisters Keeper.

Honorable Marcus Garvey. Up! Up! You mighty ones.

You can accomplish what you WILL.

And, WE WILL WIN. WE WILL WIN. WE WILL WIN.

I KNIGHT ALL Mighty Warriors with the only tools and weapons I have, and that
is the power and weapon of Eloquent Words.

I speak to you from THEE Frontier of THEE Future on THEE Outskirts of THEE City
of Eternity,
and from THEE Chambers of Thee Holies of Holies, where Spiritual secrets
resides.

Dr. Emeagwali had an
idea; to him it was very clear
that bees planned and constructed honeycombs that can't be obstructed
by inefficiency. So, he thought a computer made that way ought
to be powerful, efficient, fast. It was and better that the past!

His 65,000 processors fit a design, you might say, that bees would
divine.
3.1 billions per second calculations! To the Doctor citations and
acclamations!
His world's fastest computer now predicts the weather's when, and
how.
We'll know of future global warming and when and where the earth is
storming

[MSOffice15]
Dr. Philip, how does he do this? Wouldn't it be intellectual bliss
to have a similar needed skill and be the first person to fill
a world wide technological need! Father helped Dr. Philip to succeed.
Father's decision when Philip was age nine was worthy of a genius or
sage.

His decision - Philip would every day solve 100 math problems - no work,
no play.
Today Philip believes the daily drills increased his mediocre math skills.
We should salute his father's decision that shaped a mind for creative
precision.
Father Emeagwali was a visionary who understood the
"necessary."

1989, for Philip was the year, the outstanding year, of his
career.
He won the Gordon Bell Prize, known as the Nobel of computing. A
milestone
his supercomputer invention, helps the field of petroleum by a better gas yield
and will eventually lower gas costs thus less unrecovered gasoline
losts.

Dr. Emeagwali's computer invention may some day mean more attention,
power, for personal computer users with more options and more
choosers.
He is husband, father, achiever research scientist, a modern
believer
in technology, and the hope for more young students to open the
computing door.

Son of Africa,
supercomputer pioneer,
a visionary father of the Internet,
we honor you.

We heed
Kwame Nkrumah’s warning that,
“socialism without science is void”
in honoring you
for crowning Africa
with shining scientific discoveries.
Nnamdi Azikiwe said,
“Originality is the essence
of true scholarship.
Creativity is the soul
of the true scholar.”
You exemplify both.

Your
discovery
inspired the reinvention
of computers into supercomputers
and helped spawn the Internet.
You discovered a formula
that enables supercomputers
powered by 65,000 electronic brains
called "processors"
to perform
the world’s fastest calculations.

You
theorized
that 65,000 computers around the Earth
could forecast the weather.
This theoretical supercomputer,
with 65,000 nodes,
is known today as the Internet.

For the
audacity
of your theorized Internet,
the book “History of the Internet”
and CNN called you
“a father of the Internet.”

You solvedthe most difficult problemin
supercomputingby reformulating Newton’s Second Law of Motion as 18 equations
and algorithms; then as 24 million
algebraic equations; and
finally you programmed 65,000
processors to
solvethose 24 million equationsat a speed of
3.1 billion calculations per second.

Your 65,000
processors,
24 million equations
and 3.1 billion calculations
were three world records
that garnered international headlines,
made mathematicians rejoice,
and caused your fellow Africans
to beam with pride.

By
harnessing
the power of 65,000 processors,
you paved the way
to solving problems
once thought unsolvable and
improved life for millions.

By pushing
the limits of computing,
you helped us all
move forward
to the age of information.

When you
won
the 1989 Gordon Bell prize,
the “Nobel Prize of Supercomputing,”
then-president Bill Clinton called you,
“one of the great minds of the Information Age.”
The New African magazine readers
ranked you as
history's greatest scientist
of African descent.

Mr.
Chancellor,
for his groundbreaking discoveries
and for the sheer force of his mind,
I ask you
to confer
the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa,
upon PHILIP EMEAGWALI.

“One of the great minds
of the Information Age
is a Nigerian American
named Philip Emeagwali.

He had to leave school
because his parents
couldn't pay the fees.
He lived in a refugee camp
during your civil war.
He won a scholarship
to university and went on
to invent a formula
that lets computers make
3.1 billion calculations
per second. (Applause.)

Some people call him
the Bill Gates of Africa.
(Laughter and applause.)

But what I want to say
to you is there is
another Philip Emeagwali
-- or hundreds of them --
or thousands of them
-- growing up in Nigeria today.

I thought about it
when I was driving in
from the airport and
then driving around
to my appointments,
looking into the face
of children.
You never know
what potential
is in their mind and
in their heart;
what imagination they have;
what they have already
thought of and
dreamed of
that may be locked in
because they don't have
the means to take it out.

That's really what education is.
It's our responsibility
to make sure
all your children
have the chance
to live their dreams
so that
you don't miss
the benefit
of their contributions and
neither does the rest of the world.”

[MSOffice2]*Ikenga:
A multidimensional Igbo term, that symbolizes the spiritual quintessence
of the race. On the iconic level, it is a carved totem that denotes the vital
life-force in Igbo cosmology. On the anatomical scale, it is equivalent to the
outstretched powerful righthand of the individual with divine possibilities.

Ikenga altar statuettes are found in sacred shrines of the
Igbo-speaking people of southeastern Nigeria. They arepersonal
power icons that are believed to possess protective spirits and provide success
and achievement. The word “ikenga” translates to “man's life force” or “place
of strength.”

An early illustration of Emeagwali's chicken vs. oxen
metaphor. He proved that 65,000 chickens (electronic brains called processors)
are more powerful than a single $100 million supercomputer, a discovery that
inspired

The above hyperball network was invented by Emeagwali.
Although it was originally inspired and designed as an international network of
computers for forecasting the weather for the whole Earth it is, in many ways,
similar to what we now call the Internet. In its early years, the Internet was
a planar network covering parts of the United
States. It has now converged to a hyperball
"world wide" network covering the entire Earth. In the 1990s, the
vector supercomputer was reinvented as a hypercube supercomputer. In a few
decades, the computer will "disappear" into the Internet and, in
essence, converge to a hyperball-shaped computing and communicating device.
Then we will say that the supercomputer is the network, or that the hyperball
network is the computer, or that the hyperball network is the Internet.

[MSOffice24]Bill
Clinton walking towards the National Assembly of Nigeria with his daughter,
Chelsea, in Abuja, Nigeria August 26, 2000 to deliver speech in which he
extolled Philip Emeagwali as “one of the great minds of the Information Age.”